La Mongolie, une marge en voie d'intégration à la mondialisation?

La Mongolie, una marge en voie d’intégration a la modialisation ?

1. Depuis quand la Mongolie s’est-elle ouverte à la mondialisation? Quels sont les secteurs priviligies de cette ouverture?

Mongolia started opening up to globalization around the year 2010. Their progress can be depicted using a graph of the evolution of GDP per capita in Mongolia between 1970 and 2013. In the 1970’s their GDP per capita was almost at 0. Nonetheless, since 2010 the government has decided to multiply investments regarding the tourist sector, which represents about 10% of the national GDP.

On top of this Mongolia is looking to develop, the already present, mining sector. They are specifically interested in uranium. They have also commenced the development of railroads since 2010 to improve efficiency in transporting goods and to connect cities and create a network in the territory. Therefore the mining sector and the tourism are the privileged sectors in the opening of Globalization in Mongolia.

1. Quels sont les enjeux géopolitiques engendrés par le décollage économique?

A major strategic peculiarity of Mongolia is it’s geographical isolation. The country is isolated from the world by China and Russia. So Mongolia has a dependency, which may put its sovereignty at risk. The goal of the Mongolian government is to decrease their dependency from Russia and China, which are the countries that exploit resources from Mongolia (mainly coal and copper). Therefore Mongolia has been looking for new agreements for the exploitation of the new mining sectors, focusing primarily on uranium. They are doing this in order to decrease the amount of influence that Russia and China may have in their country (economically). For this reason Mongolia has recently set new agreements with countries like, France, India, Japan and the UAE.

1. Comment l’intégration de la Mongolie à la mondialisation transforme-t-elle ses territoires et sa société?

First of all the territory has been changed in a significant way due to the fact that there are 3 projects of development for railways in the country which will, without a doubt, have an impact on the Mongolian society. As can be seen in Oulan-Bator, which is currently in the process of development as well as we can see the transformation in its territory and society. First and foremost we can see that there is a major modernization, which is not exactly sustainable as the image shows. The center of the capital is being developed whilst on the outskirts the traditional nomadic habitats of Mongolians, named yurts, are still ever present. This sudden change has in fact created a certain social disorder; the wealth that the country has amassed hasn’t been effectively redistributed. An upper class has emerged from the previous middle classes, whom were able to invest in the prolific mining sector. On the other hand the rest of the population has been impoverished. Thus, the continuing inequalities and impoverishment of the majority of the population, whom have been confiscated the fruits of globalization, have had to face the symptoms: alcoholism, crime, and prostitution. Nonetheless, we cannot deny that globalization has had its impact on Mongolia and that it has transformed its territory and society like never before.

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